Former Freshmen
by Starzki
Summary: Short and sweet post movie one-shot. The movie ended with a devastated Electra Ovilo. To collect herself and move forward, she drops in on an old friend. Little bit of back story and a little bit of where Electra will go after her brush with the Bebop.


Standard disclaimer: Don't own.

A/N: I'm just taking a little break from Participant Observation. After reading Water/Air's "As Far as it Goes," I wanted to write my own little post-movie one-shot. So here it is. Basically, it seemed that Electra would have some major things to take care of, so this is the beginning of her journey. Read and review, pretty please.

================================================================

Former Freshmen

By Starzki

My door buzzer went of unexpectedly late in the evening, sending poor Jude into a hysterical barking frenzy. His fur stood on end around his scruff, down his back and, comically, in a skinny Mohawk down his swishing black tail.

"Quiet, Jude! Hush!" I commanded. Jude looked at me skeptically. He knew that it was too late to expect any company. I hadn't ordered any take out and my boyfriend, Blake, never dropped by so unexpectedly. I went to the intercom to talk to the person who was pressing my button two floors down.

"Hello? Who is it?"

"It's Elly. I was your suitemate in college." -_OH!-_I was both confused and excited. Elly and I had been inseparable our first year of college and I almost laughed that she thought she would have to clarify who she was to me. I wasn't about to forget one of the best friends I had ever had. We had fallen out of touch years before as our lives swept us apart, but it wasn't anything either of us had taken personally. I was mostly curious about the reason behind the late night visit as I buzzed her in.

I commanded Jude to sit and unlocked and cracked open my door. "Ells, are you afraid of big dogs?" I called down to the shadow climbing up my stairs.

"No," she answered as she stepped into the light of my landing. I had expected the intervening years to change her as they had changed me: Her eyes were less innocent with a more thoughtful aspect. She'd cut her hair, the brown locks framed her still-pretty face, the ends flipped out and away, and the bangs were in her eyes. She'd also lost the baby fat we used to lament when we were 18. But further than the expected, how she looked shocked me. She seemed so lost and timid.

Electra Ovilo had always inhabited 100 percent of her body and never wavered in the confidence and control she exuded. She never took shit from anyone in her life. She had always trusted herself in every decision. I learned more about life and how to live in this world from her than any of my freshman year professors combined. The woman in front of me was not my Elly. She was broken and tentative and looked at me like Jude looked at me before being punished for making a mess in the corner.

I stepped onto the landing. "Ells? Is that really you?"

A tear spilled down her cheek and she stepped forward and hugged me. I was instantly afraid for my friend. Elly had never once cried, never surrendered to so much as a twitch of fear through those two traumatic semesters when we were away from home and family for the first time. She wasn't really that emotional a person. This open display of vulnerability made me realize that something was very wrong.

"Oh, Lynn, I'm so glad you're home! Can I come inside? I think I need to sit down."

"Of course!" I held Jude by the collar as he sniffed the new guest and deemed her an unlikely threat to my safety. Once his Labrador welcome was exhausted, I said, "Ok, Jude. Go sit down like a good boy." He obeyed and Elly and I settled down on the couch.

"You named him Jude? As in Hardy's -_Jude the Obscure_?" asked Elly, bringing up the one class we'd shared in college.

"Yeah," I smiled. "I felt so bad for poor Jude that I had to resurrect him and give him a happy life."

"That's nice," Elly said, then her chin trembled and she hid her face in her hands and gave herself over to silent sobs. I felt at a loss. Needing to busy myself rather than witness an old friend's torment, I hopped up and went to my kitchen and started preparing some tea.

Two minutes later, I was back with the steaming mugs and Elly had collected herself once again. "Thanks," she said, accepting the cup proffered to her. "Sorry about all that."

"Oh, please, Elly. You've lived through more of my own personal crises and crying jags than I can count. If you want, I have some whisky or some peppermint Schnapps if you want to Irish up the tea a little."

A startled laugh escaped her. "No thanks, Lynn. I'm sorry for dropping in on you like this. I didn't know anyone else in Alba City that I wanted to talk to."

"I'm honored. But, why me? Why now?"

"I was thinking back about how we would just talk for hours about everything."

I laughed at the instant memories that came to mind. "Yeah! I seem to remember that in most of our best talks, we were we sitting on the bathroom floor between our rooms because my roommate was sleeping and yours was…What did we used to call it?" I asked, grasping for our codeword for "making out/having crazy monkey sex."

"Snorkeling," Elly laughed and I joined in. I remembered how mad she used to get when her roommate brought home random boys to "entertain."

"That's right! Oh my goodness. We just knew each other so well. I remember how we could pick up conversations, mid-thought, that we had been having two weeks before without either of us missing a beat or needing to explain what we were talking about."

Elly smiled again, sadly this time, and stared into the space above her teacup. "God. We were so stupid back then," she said finally, regret bleeding into her voice.

I reached out and touched her hand. "No, Elly. We've never been stupid. We were silly. We were young. We were mad as hell and were going to set the world on fire with our big dreams. But we were never stupid."

Elly scrunched up her face into a look of pain and sadness. More tears fell. "But, Lynn, I AM so stupid." A frown pulled her mouth into a disgusted grimace. "I just don't know what to do." Her eyes searched mine, looking hopefully for an answer.

"Elly, what's happened? Why are you here?"

"Did you ever become that psychologist you said you were going to be?"

"Yeah. You're looking at Dr. Gwendolynn Myers. I've been in practice for a couple of years now. Do you want to talk to me as a therapist?"

"No. I want, I need, my friend. But I figured you'd also know what you were talking about."

"Ok," I said. "Lay it on me. Electra, are you in trouble?"

Elly frowned simply and slowly nodded. Her breathing became more ragged as she struggled to control her emotions. Finally, a calm look took over and her eyes unfocused as she disassociated from what she was about to tell me. "The man I loved died yesterday."

"Oh, honey!" I said. I put down my tea and tried to be comforting as I placed my hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. You must be devastated."

"I killed him. I killed Vincent."

My mouth dropped open. The admission hung in the air like a noxious fog, an airborne toxic event, that poisoned my small room. Elly looked at me, wary, gauging my reaction.

When I could breathe, I said, "Tell men what happened."

"Have you been watching the news? He was the bio terrorist that the government put such a huge bounty on. He wanted to destroy the world and I killed him."

My heart stuttered in my chest, then began to beat madly. I don't normally watch the news, but there was no missing the broadcasts filled with basic speculation and no hard information about the man who had been holding my city hostage. I think I said, "Oh my God," but I'm not sure.

Elly kept talking. "We met in the army. We got involved. Then he got shipped off to fight on Titan and the army sent me to earn my bio degree by working at a pharmaceutical company. After the war, I went to Titan to get him, to bring him back. He was in quarantine. I snuck in to see him. I didn't know what they were doing to him, but he looked like he'd been through all seven circles of Hell. He recognized me then. After they made me leave, it was explained to me that the enemy had used some biological weapon on him and that he would die. I was sent back to Mars without Vincent. A couple of days later, word came that he had escaped quarantine but would still probably die. That's what they SAID, anyway."

Elly took a breath and shuddered. She took slow sips of the tea. I knew she was functioning at some basic level in order to get her story out without breaking down. I'd seen it hundreds of times. But I still even preferred that Elly be hysterical than be this mechanical woman before me. This was my friend, the person who, for a year, knew me better than anyone else and who I would've done anything for. I knew it was a selfish thought, but I wanted her the way she was back then, strong and steady and full of quiet and vibrant life. I wanted to fix her, but I also knew it wasn't that easy, that there would be no magical words to take her pain away. But I still had to try.

"Elly, you saved millions of lives. There are people who are alive today who lead good, happy lives who have you to thank. I'm so sorry that you lost someone. But I'm not sorry that Vincent is dead. And I thank you."

Elly's eyes grew sharp. "You don't understand. I was LIED to. They did that to Vincent, made him what he was. He started out with nothing going for him. Then he becomes happy for a few years, then they take all of that away from him. We gave our whole lives over to the army and they did this to us, pitted us against each other." She spat out her words with anger and contempt, her unfocused anger filling the room and rousing Jude from his doze.

I was nodding at her, liking the color that was returning to her cheeks. "You've every goddamn right to be angry, Elly," I encouraged her. "Anger is something we can work with. What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to take them down," she said with such coldness I thought I saw the icicles forming on her breath as she spoke.

"The army?"

"No. It's not really the army's fault, in itself. It's those who work in the shadows without conscience and without responsibility to anyone. I'm going to expose them."

"Ok, Elly. How?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. But you were right. I'm not stupid. I know their operations inside and out. I'll find a way."

"If you need any help, don't be afraid to ask."

Elly smiled at my hubris. She gave me a look that told me that she would never ask and that I had no idea what I was trying to get myself into. "Ok, Lynn. If I need a shrink, you're the first on my list," she laughed.

"Ells, EVERYONE needs a shrink. And I'll help anyway I can. Free curbside therapy, right at your fingertips."

"Drive-by counseling, eh?"

"Ammunition's ready. I'm locked and loaded." I gave her my best professional psychologist look. "How does that make you FEEL? Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. Yes, but what are you REALLY saying?"

Elly gave me a worn chuckle, let the smile linger for a few seconds before the sadness overtook her features again.

"Oh, Ells," I said and gave her a hug.

She let out a half-laugh, half-sob as she said, "I think I met some people during all of this who could really use your professional help."

"Bunch of crazies, huh?"

Elly laughed again. "Every last one of them. Bounty hunters. Without them, I don't think anyone in the world would have survived. But I shudder to think what home life is like on their ship."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. Two guys. One completely insane. The other slowly being driven to the brink by the first one. A woman I didn't meet, but who sounds like a handful. A kid who bounces off the walls, literally. And a dog. And a partridge in a pear tree."

I grinned at her. "Sounds like a perfect combination to me if they were able to help save us."

She nodded thoughtfully. "The crazy guy, Spike, reminded me a little of Vincent when we first started going out. I hope things work out for him."

I moved the topic of conversation over to lighter topics, things that would make Elly smile, not feel so lost and alone. We finished our tea and reminisced a little over the year we spent together at our college before we transferred away, her to join the army, me to another school closer to home. She got up to leave and I walked her toward the door.

Before she turned to go, I saw a flash of blue and I grabbed her hand. "A tattoo! Smelly!" I admonished, digging up her old nickname. "Miss I'll-never-mark-my-body-permanantly! After you held my hand for two hours as I got mine, you said you would never get one!"

She smiled embarrassedly. "I bowed to peer pressure. Everyone in our division had one, so I got one, too," Elly explained lamely.

I teased her with the same kind of lecture she used to give me when we were fresh out of high school. "Oh, you won't get one with your best friend, but you'll bow to the hegemonic masculinity and totalitarian power of the army. I see how it is."

"I think I created a monster," she joked back.

"No, Ells. You just made me see the world and made me realize how great it is to be myself. Just make sure you remember all of that, too. Grieve for Vincent. Be sad he's gone. Feel everything you need to. But stay angry and set the world on fire. You still have it in you. I know that. You need to remember that."

She smiled warmly at me, clicked her heels together and saluted. "Yes, ma'am!" she said. Then she hugged me goodbye and descended the stairs.

I turned back into my apartment and stooped to give Jude a big hug. He looked at me with his huge, soulful, sad eyes and wagged his tail.

I asked him, "Do you think she'll be ok? I sure hope so. Maybe I'll get another puppy and name him Vincent. What do you think?"

Jude nuzzled my neck briefly before settling down once again. I turned to phone Blake to tell him that I missed him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See you space cowgirl…


End file.
